After 5 years of just riding around between 5 and 12 hours a week, and taking part in a few TT's, short MTB races ( middle of the pack Cat 4 ), and a few cyclocross races ( middle of pack in B races ), I have bought and read The Cyclist Training Bible with an aim of taking things serious. I think I have a decent grasp now of his idea of periodisation with base, build, periods etc. However, I am now not sure that it fits in with how I plan to race. Was wondering if I could get any help.
I hope to compete in a full series of cyclocross races between October and the middle of January, and then a MTB series between April and August of next year, with maybe some more TT's thrown in. I don't plan to peak for any 1 race, but be mostly competitive throughout the period of races.
I'm not sure how to apply the Joe Friel method to this scenario or even if it is the best way to sit down and plan for this. Anyone here race summer and winter with ideas to start me off thinking on the right lines to come up with an annual plan.
Planning a training year
Moderator: Moderator Team
To do it properly you need to take rest period after cx and then start building again.
You will not be in full racing mode come April.
You may consider what season is more important to you.
If April-August is more important you may want to end the cx season early.
You will not be in full racing mode come April.
You may consider what season is more important to you.
If April-August is more important you may want to end the cx season early.
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I hear you. That was what I had come to realize that there wasn't time to do a proper plan according to Joe Friel's book with Base 1,2,3 Build,1,2 etc etc
The MTB season is probably the one that could be cut short, the last race is on the easiest course and probably the least important one, I could do it but just not train specifically for it. That would leave most of August free to start prep for cyclocross as well as September. The last cyclocross race is mid-January so I guess I could go into the early MTB races in April while still in a preperation phase and treat them as B races.
OR....and what I was also hoping for info on, is there an alternative way to plan for this rather than Base, Build, Taper & Peak. More like maintaining most of the fitness for most of the year, with a little extra/different in the weeks between MTB and cyclocross and back to MTB again ? Is that possible ?
The MTB season is probably the one that could be cut short, the last race is on the easiest course and probably the least important one, I could do it but just not train specifically for it. That would leave most of August free to start prep for cyclocross as well as September. The last cyclocross race is mid-January so I guess I could go into the early MTB races in April while still in a preperation phase and treat them as B races.
OR....and what I was also hoping for info on, is there an alternative way to plan for this rather than Base, Build, Taper & Peak. More like maintaining most of the fitness for most of the year, with a little extra/different in the weeks between MTB and cyclocross and back to MTB again ? Is that possible ?
I am not sure a Base - Build - Taper approach is the best fitting one, when you want to include the CX races in your winter. Also training blocks need not be one dimensional.
Just tossing around ideas. You could do an unspecific/general conditioning block in Aug-Sept. That would be long "base" rides, and short hard intervals (along the lines of 12x30s with 5min break). You might not go into the CX season at your best, but rather a good foundation.
During the CX season, listen to your body, as to not overcook. Do active recovery, spin the legs the day after the race. Get a good training in mid-week, if you can handle it, do two "payload" training days mid-week in a row. Probably something complementary to CX racing, like longer, steady intervals. Maybe some cadence drills too. The intervals can have monthly progression, e.g. 12x2min in Oct, 5x5min in Nov, 3x15min in Dec, 1x40min in Jan. The weekends without races, try to do a longer easy ride.
Feb-Apr prepare for the MTB season. There's good info here how to do that.
That's just pointers of course. There is no one right training, even a single athlete can be successful with different approaches. Try things, and find out what you like. Again, just like blackjack, always leave a little extra. When you bust, you're out.
Just tossing around ideas. You could do an unspecific/general conditioning block in Aug-Sept. That would be long "base" rides, and short hard intervals (along the lines of 12x30s with 5min break). You might not go into the CX season at your best, but rather a good foundation.
During the CX season, listen to your body, as to not overcook. Do active recovery, spin the legs the day after the race. Get a good training in mid-week, if you can handle it, do two "payload" training days mid-week in a row. Probably something complementary to CX racing, like longer, steady intervals. Maybe some cadence drills too. The intervals can have monthly progression, e.g. 12x2min in Oct, 5x5min in Nov, 3x15min in Dec, 1x40min in Jan. The weekends without races, try to do a longer easy ride.
Feb-Apr prepare for the MTB season. There's good info here how to do that.
That's just pointers of course. There is no one right training, even a single athlete can be successful with different approaches. Try things, and find out what you like. Again, just like blackjack, always leave a little extra. When you bust, you're out.
Bikes: Raw Ti, 650b flatbar CX
You don't need a linear plan for what you want to do. Linear periodization is pretty damn outdated and Friels mainly uses an iteration if Issurin's block method.
If I were you I'd take a very measured approach. You don't have to map the whole season out at once as that NEVER works for normal people with lives and stuff. Find some races that are either really hard or really interesting. Try to see if there is a group of them together. That can be your semi-peak. A few weeks beforehand hit some very race specific workouts and ever so slightly drop your volume only to focus on recovery. Its not a taper in the normal sense, but just resting a bit more and being a bit more specific. You won't run the risk of really losing anything from it and you will sharpen up for those cool races. After those cool races no need to take off and rebuild. A second massive base build is almost completely unnecessary. What I've commonly seen work is people take a few days completely off, usually 7-10, and simply go back to some of the bread and butter workouts of their base period. Repeat the above for being a bit sharper and more rested for the CX races in the fall.
You will gain much more by emphasizing basic consistency and quality all year. You do not need to do wave loading and all that bullshit. IIRC, my build from mid-January until late April had one recovery week. My CTL ramped at a whopping 1.5pts/week. It seems that the blocks were 3 or 4 days, usually with a day off fully in between and some recovery riding at low zone 2 built into the blocks, whatever they were. Often times the blocks were constructed on no more than a day's notice. If there was a nice weekend out for a change and it was Wednesday, I'd probably take Thursday off, do a workout Friday, a hard group ride Saturday, and a longer enduro ride Sunday. If the weather was absolute shit after that I'd chill out and spin on Monday and then do a 4 day block indoors on the trainer.
Compared to years that had linear periodization I actually completed more interval workouts with a much higher quality, posted better power numbers, all that stuff. It confirmed a theory which many coaches have operated on for years that being iterative as you go is a better guide than a rigidly-planned year.
If you know what the Spring races are like you generally know what they require in terms of skills, power requirements, and simply what you need to be fast. Don't follow Friels' outdated notion that you have to progress through the power zones in order either. My longest interval was 8min last winter and the easiest they ever got was 105%. Posted a higher threshold that way as well. The intervals were structured to be very variable in pace, which used energy kinetic patterns to simulate basically everything I would do in a race. They weren't really high tech or ultra complex either.
I've also seen loads of people do pretty well with basically saying "I will have 3 days a week that are 'hard'" and just filling it with bread and butter stuff slowly raising targets over time. A 2x20, a 5x5, and a really hard group ride might be padded by as much regular riding as they could manage and recover from around that and they would just raise their targets slowly over time. Closer to races throw in a 30x30 or an 8x2 and they were generally at 95%-100% of peak fitness. More importantly they could carry fitness much longer throughout the year, which IMO is valuable as you get a hell of a lot more out of racing if every race is basically a B race rather than a bunch of races you half-ass/struggle through, a few that are OK, and then 1-2 where everything has to align perfectly for things to be great. That's not enjoyable either and often seems like a cop out.
I'd take a bit of time off after January, do some very basic aerobic rides with some token zone 4 and zone 5 workouts, maybe some group rides until April. From there I'd do some power tests or a few early season races just to see where I'm lacking. It could be entirely by perception such as "wow surges are really gassing me". Then you take your 2x20 or 4x10 or whatever and include a big surge every 2 minutes or something. Or instead of a 5x5 you might do 15x30sec in zone 6 with 30s-1min rest.
In the end being consistent and conservative will matter the most. Take that 12hrs a week and try to hit it every week if you can. Don't let it cause stress because that will eat into recovery. When you find recovery getting a bit longer than normal, cut out the winnervals for a week or so, cut ride duration a tad, take a day or two off and rest up and just start back up where you were before. Have fun with it. Appreciate slow, but steady progress. Stick with something and see it through, take notes, don't do anything overcomplicated. Save the whiz bang shit for those few special races you really like or get excited about.
If I were you I'd take a very measured approach. You don't have to map the whole season out at once as that NEVER works for normal people with lives and stuff. Find some races that are either really hard or really interesting. Try to see if there is a group of them together. That can be your semi-peak. A few weeks beforehand hit some very race specific workouts and ever so slightly drop your volume only to focus on recovery. Its not a taper in the normal sense, but just resting a bit more and being a bit more specific. You won't run the risk of really losing anything from it and you will sharpen up for those cool races. After those cool races no need to take off and rebuild. A second massive base build is almost completely unnecessary. What I've commonly seen work is people take a few days completely off, usually 7-10, and simply go back to some of the bread and butter workouts of their base period. Repeat the above for being a bit sharper and more rested for the CX races in the fall.
You will gain much more by emphasizing basic consistency and quality all year. You do not need to do wave loading and all that bullshit. IIRC, my build from mid-January until late April had one recovery week. My CTL ramped at a whopping 1.5pts/week. It seems that the blocks were 3 or 4 days, usually with a day off fully in between and some recovery riding at low zone 2 built into the blocks, whatever they were. Often times the blocks were constructed on no more than a day's notice. If there was a nice weekend out for a change and it was Wednesday, I'd probably take Thursday off, do a workout Friday, a hard group ride Saturday, and a longer enduro ride Sunday. If the weather was absolute shit after that I'd chill out and spin on Monday and then do a 4 day block indoors on the trainer.
Compared to years that had linear periodization I actually completed more interval workouts with a much higher quality, posted better power numbers, all that stuff. It confirmed a theory which many coaches have operated on for years that being iterative as you go is a better guide than a rigidly-planned year.
If you know what the Spring races are like you generally know what they require in terms of skills, power requirements, and simply what you need to be fast. Don't follow Friels' outdated notion that you have to progress through the power zones in order either. My longest interval was 8min last winter and the easiest they ever got was 105%. Posted a higher threshold that way as well. The intervals were structured to be very variable in pace, which used energy kinetic patterns to simulate basically everything I would do in a race. They weren't really high tech or ultra complex either.
I've also seen loads of people do pretty well with basically saying "I will have 3 days a week that are 'hard'" and just filling it with bread and butter stuff slowly raising targets over time. A 2x20, a 5x5, and a really hard group ride might be padded by as much regular riding as they could manage and recover from around that and they would just raise their targets slowly over time. Closer to races throw in a 30x30 or an 8x2 and they were generally at 95%-100% of peak fitness. More importantly they could carry fitness much longer throughout the year, which IMO is valuable as you get a hell of a lot more out of racing if every race is basically a B race rather than a bunch of races you half-ass/struggle through, a few that are OK, and then 1-2 where everything has to align perfectly for things to be great. That's not enjoyable either and often seems like a cop out.
I'd take a bit of time off after January, do some very basic aerobic rides with some token zone 4 and zone 5 workouts, maybe some group rides until April. From there I'd do some power tests or a few early season races just to see where I'm lacking. It could be entirely by perception such as "wow surges are really gassing me". Then you take your 2x20 or 4x10 or whatever and include a big surge every 2 minutes or something. Or instead of a 5x5 you might do 15x30sec in zone 6 with 30s-1min rest.
In the end being consistent and conservative will matter the most. Take that 12hrs a week and try to hit it every week if you can. Don't let it cause stress because that will eat into recovery. When you find recovery getting a bit longer than normal, cut out the winnervals for a week or so, cut ride duration a tad, take a day or two off and rest up and just start back up where you were before. Have fun with it. Appreciate slow, but steady progress. Stick with something and see it through, take notes, don't do anything overcomplicated. Save the whiz bang shit for those few special races you really like or get excited about.
